Onward.

The city closes around me and suddenly: I am Grendl.
Perhaps, after all, it is not so sudden.

Even the cats, as I try to warm them, bounce from walls,
like junkies in work-houses. Yuck.

I have cost myself everything, exalting at the bargain!
I have tried, for all my life, to chase innocence, and
yet, I am spoiled, ruined, by: what? Rot?

Yuck.

Tainted by love and sex and art and friendship.

Is this irony?

Did God lure me full circle for laughter? That every bloom
might blacken at edges, too close to pallid flame?

Yuck.

I'm sorry, God, then, to have followed your alleys.

Perhaps I should have thirsted, instead, for money. Cars.
Houses. Ownership. Right?

Yuck. My mouth sours with even these words.
Then: reverse me in time and I will tithe thee with mortgage
and debt. I will earn your respect in burden.

For that is how it goes, right? Because I'm sick of the punishing,
please, enough.

Yours, (right?)
me.

P.S. Yuck.